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Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID

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Re: Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID

#81

Always remember: your fingerprint is identification. You can be forced to identify yourself to law enforcement. Do not make it your password. Your password is something you know, not something you are.

You can be forced to do lots of things by law enforcement, like give up your password which is something other than your fingerprint.

Re: Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a problem for me. Charge and prosecute them or let them go. Indefinite detention without a fair and speedy trial is unquestionably unconstitutional.

Well imagine a criminal is holding a piece of your property or even a person and not revealing where that is. Do you think it's reasonable to hold them for 30 days and then let them go and say "ah well I guess you can return that/them if you want cuz you did your time." A charge of contempt is still a charge.

Do you think it's reasonable to imprison someone for life if they don't tell you where they hid your car?

And holding a person is already a separate charge - kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment.

Re: Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contempt is a terrifying charge, because under current law, you can be jailed indefinitely for the same contempt charge for as long as you refuse to cooperate with whatever the court thinks you should cooperate with. There's no upper bound there. So that wouldn't solve the problem.

Contempt is a weird power in general, especially when it's used for reasons like "disrespecting the judge." If I am disrespectful to the governor of my state, or if I'm disrespectful to a police officer, or if I'm disrespectful to a fireman or a bailiff or a legislator or a district attorney or a teacher or the President, that is a thing that I can legally do. But for some reason it's not outrageous for a judge to se…

Contempt is appealable, so it's not as if a single judge could ever detain someone indefinitely.

Re: Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID

#84
Don't the cops already have her fingerprints? This is partly why biometric authentication is useless. You're supposed to change passwords frequently. How do you change your fingerprints? Who chooses a password the cops already know, and anyone else who knows you has access to?

Re: Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contempt is a terrifying charge, because under current law, you can be jailed indefinitely for the same contempt charge for as long as you refuse to cooperate with whatever the court thinks you should cooperate with. There's no upper bound there. So that wouldn't solve the problem.

Contempt in this case would be impossible after a couple days, when the iPhone will refuse to accept the fingerprint and instead require the passphrase. She is no longer capable of fulfilling the court's demand (use your fingerprint to unlock the phone) at that point.

not if they charged it? wouldnt it last forever?

Re: Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID

#86
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contempt in this case would be impossible after a couple days, when the iPhone will refuse to accept the fingerprint and instead require the passphrase. She is no longer capable of fulfilling the court's demand (use your fingerprint to unlock the phone) at that point.

not if they charged it? wouldnt it last forever?

The iPhone requires a password after a couple days of inattention, and does not accept Touch ID logins.

Re: Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contempt is a terrifying charge, because under current law, you can be jailed indefinitely for the same contempt charge for as long as you refuse to cooperate with whatever the court thinks you should cooperate with. There's no upper bound there. So that wouldn't solve the problem.

Contempt is a weird power in general, especially when it's used for reasons like "disrespecting the judge." If I am disrespectful to the governor of my state, or if I'm disrespectful to a police officer, or if I'm disrespectful to a fireman or a bailiff or a legislator or a district attorney or a teacher or the President, that is a thing that I can legally do. But for some reason it's not outrageous for a judge to se…

"Contempt of court" isn't supposed to refer to contempt of the judge, though. It's supposed to refer to contempt for the mechanism of a trial: not respecting the time or the (legally-required) duties of anyone there, basically making it impossible to go on with the work of the court system. A lawyer attempting to "filibuster" a jury into agreeing with them, for example, would be in contempt of court for wasting the jurors' time.

The "contempt of court" charge basically serves as a court-private time-out box to send people to whenever they can't handle being in court, until they learn to stop, erm, "blocking the cooperative event queue from pumping messages."

It's not that the charge has to be indefinite—but it has to be capable of sticking as long as the trial's progress is halted. The charge should definitely cease to apply if the trial manages to resume through some other route—and especially if it manages to conclude.

Remember, "contempt of court" isn't about malfeasance, either. Experts who lie on the stand are not in contempt. Lawyers who introduce non-cross-examined evidence are not in contempt. Random audience members getting up and saying things during court are not in contempt. It's only when one of these things causes the trial mechanism to grind to a halt, and then the person refuses to yield to let the trial resume, that they are in contempt. It's a process-control mechanism, and in that respect, it's quite necessary.

(That's not to say it can't be abused—especially in smaller courts in non-jury trials. But it has a well-defined good usage, and can't really be redefined without losing that usage.)

Re: Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contempt is a terrifying charge, because under current law, you can be jailed indefinitely for the same contempt charge for as long as you refuse to cooperate with whatever the court thinks you should cooperate with. There's no upper bound there. So that wouldn't solve the problem.

Contempt is a weird power in general, especially when it's used for reasons like "disrespecting the judge." If I am disrespectful to the governor of my state, or if I'm disrespectful to a police officer, or if I'm disrespectful to a fireman or a bailiff or a legislator or a district attorney or a teacher or the President, that is a thing that I can legally do. But for some reason it's not outrageous for a judge to se…

How else can the court enforce that it is the final decision on disputes other than this? It is unfair, but seems like the logical place for unfairness to reside in such a system.

Re: Judge Grants Search Warrant Forcing Woman to Unlock iPhone with Touch ID

#89

Could it be argued that the knowledge of which finger (or part of your finger) you use for authentication is equivalent to a passcode?

Maybe, but you get five tries before you get locked out, so even if your lawyer pleaded successfully with that, the judge could reasonably order that you try with, say, all the fingers of your right hand, or maybe both thumbs and index fingers, without forcing you to disclose that knowledge.
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